The New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs began the NBA Finals last night (Wednesday) in San Antonio. Game 2 will be tomorrow night (8:30 p.m.) also in Texas before the series moves to Madison Square Garden for Games 3 and 4, Monday (8:30 p.m.) and Wednesday (8:30 p.m.), respectively.
In the end, the winner will establish a legacy for their franchises with disparate meanings. For the Knicks, winning the championship would commence one of New York City’s most fervent celebrations ever. Meanwhile, the Spurs taking home the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy (named after the league’s late former commissioner) would signal the dawn of the NBA’s Victor Wembanyama Era, referring to the Spurs’ 22-year-old, 7’4” phenom, whose global popularity and standing as the sport’s preeminent figure would grow exponentially.
The Knicks, one of the NBA’s original 11 franchises when the league — then called the Basketball Association of America — was founded in 1946, haven’t won a championship since 1973, a drought now 53 years long. In total, they have just two, the other in 1970. A victory in this series would etch them in New York City sports lore as one of the most beloved and galvanizing teams in the tri-state region’s history.
The symmetry and irony in the two franchises’ interconnected existence is stark. The Spurs were born in 1967 as the Dallas Chaparrals, a charter member of the NBA before the franchise relocated to San Antonio in 1973, the year of the Knicks’ last title.
New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns and San Antonio Spurs guard Stephon Castle are central figures in this year’s NBA Finals, which began last night (Wednesday) in San Antonio. Credit: (AP Photo/Ian Maule)
They joined the NBA in June 1976 when the leagues officially merged. Since then, the Spurs have more than doubled the number of NBA titles the Knicks have captured, amassing five, the first achieved in the 1999 Finals against the Knicks, ending the series 4-1 at the Garden in a memorable 78-77 Game 5 win.
By accomplishments, the Spurs are more decorated than the Knicks, yet few franchises have been as mythologized as New York — rivaled perhaps only by the Boston Celtics (18 titles) and Los Angeles Lakers (17) — for what they did six decades ago. New York’s iconic players of Walt Frazier, Willis Reed and Patrick Ewing, are parts that are more worthy of reverence than the franchise’s 80-year whole. Conversely, the Spurs’ all-time greats, David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Kawhi Leonard et al., are parts that have shaped the Spurs whole into a mosaic worthy of exaltation.
So fate has placed the Knicks and Spurs together again. Their trajectories ostensibly on divergent paths. The young Spurs with Wembanyama, 21-year-old Stephon Castle and 20-year-old Dylan Harper comprise their young core. The experienced Knicks with their stars, Jalen Brunson (29), Karl-Anthony Towns (30) and OG Anunoby (28), are all in their primes.
The stakes are higher for the Knicks. Guided by 56-year-old head coach Mike Brown, this current group may not have many more opportunities together for a title run while the Spurs, piloted by 39-year-old Mitch Johnson, in his first full season as the Spurs’ head coach, has a fledgling squad poised to be contenders for the next decade.
The through line connecting these teams, their shared history and the career-defining stakes for the players and franchises involved, makes this year’s Finals one of the most compelling the league has produced.
